


Starlight And Silver Fields

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, OT3, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 16:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5709673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three lovers are drawn together by Gondolin, the most beautiful space station in the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starlight And Silver Fields

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



> All I can say is, I really hope you wanted that space!AU. 
> 
> Happy HollyPoly! ;)

He knew it was her before she so much as spoke a word; only she would have the audacity to burst into the lab quite so abruptly. Still, his suspicion was confirmed as soon as she opened her mouth. “I think I’ve solved it,” Idril announced, bounding over and perching herself on the edge of his desk.

Voronwë looked up at her, eyebrow raised, and closed off the holoprojector. “Finally.”

Idril gave him a look. “Artificial gravity is harder than it looks, you know.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that.” Voronwë leant forward and rested his elbows on the desk, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them. “So, how did you crack it?”

Idril shrugged nonchalantly. “Finally solved the equation, that’s all. Auntie dealt with the engineering side of things.” She was gazing hungrily at where the holoprojector had been displaying one of Voronwë’s star maps. “More importantly; did you find a route?”

“ _I_ am not the head of astrogation,” Voronwë pointed out, “I have, in fact, only just graduated from cadet rank.”

Idril rolled her eyes at him. “Come on, Voronwë. I know you’re looking.”

“Everyone’s looking,” Voronwë said evasively, refusing to be drawn. Then he added cheekily, “Charting a course through a dense star cloud is harder than it looks, you know.”

Giving him a momentary glare, Idril hopped off the desk and made for the door. “Fine,” she threw back over her shoulder, “But I’ll know soon enough.”

“When’s your graduation ceremony?” Voronwë called, just as she was disappearing.

“Two weeks,” her voice floated back.

He went, of course, just as she had attended his. Clapped along in the crowd as she walked confidently across the stage and received the piece of carefully prepared paper onto which her certification was printed.

They went out to celebrate afterwards, a raucous group of young adults allowed to cut loose for once. It was a mad, happy counterpoint to the darkness that gripped the Beleriand Sector, a darkness that permeated into all their lives.

He and Idril had never been more than friends, and after their fumbling encounter in his thankfully empty room in the barracks, they never progressed any further. Voronwë didn’t regret it, exactly; it hadn’t felt bad, but in some way it hadn’t been _right_ , either.

The fleet launched from the surface of Nevrast some nine months later, cutting a course through the darkness of space into the tangled depths of the Encircling Mountain Nebula, with Voronwë proudly at his station on one of the huge cruisers.

If he thought of Idril at all, it was only to wish her safe passage.

/

The first thing he registered when he woke was that he was _not dead_ , which was a rather nice thing to be able to notice, actually.

The second thing he noticed was grass under his palms, and birdsong somewhere not too far away; he was on planet, then.

A shadow fell over him, blocking the bright sunlight that was trying to pry its way under his closed lids, and years of instinct forced his tired eyes open, despite their protest at the harsh light.

A Man with golden hair and a worried expression was leaning over him. “You’re awake,” he said, going to one knee, “Are you alright?”

“Depends on your definition of ‘alright’,” Voronwë grumbled, struggling into a sitting position. “Nothing appears broken.” He rubbed his head, looking around. He was sitting in the middle of a grassy depression in the earth; trees lined the rim of the bowl-shaped crater on all sides. “What happened? Where am I?”

“Nevrast,” the young man said. Voronwë’s heart jumped at the word; though with joy or unease, he couldn’t tell. “Your escape pod came down just there,” he continued, waving a hand behind Voronwë. Turning, Voronwë saw the oval shape of the battered-looking pod, embedded in the earth at the top of the dell and still smoking ever so slightly. “I dragged you down here,” the Man said, “I thought it might…I don’t know…blow up,” he added, eyeing the escape pod darkly.

“Unlikely, but thank you for the concern,” Voronwë said. “Are we far from the city?”

The young Man shook his head. “No; in fact, we are in a park within it.”

“Oh.” Voronwë looked around again, and this time, just above the trees, he could see the tiniest peak of a skyscraper, glittering glass in the noon sun. “Well, good. What’s your name, stranger? I am Voronwë, of…” He hesitated. “Of Nevrast, actually.”

“I am Tuor, son of Huor,” the young man announced. “And I know you, Voronwë, are of Gondolin. You must take me there.”

No argument would sway Tuor, and when Voronwë saw that he had taken up the armour and rifle King Turgon had left behind – under the orders of Ulmo, just as the legend had said – he agreed to pilot Tuor’s small ship to Gondolin. “With a ship this size, we will have to stop to refuel,” he said, looking around the small interior doubtfully as he sat down in the pilot’s chair.

“Teiglin,” Tuor said confidently, dropping into the co-pliot’s seat, “Prospectors from Brethil still hold the facilities there.”

Voronwë had never shared a long space journey with only one other crewmember before. Soon, he knew Tuor better than he might have liked; his sleeping habits, eating habits, personal hygiene habits…there were no secrets from shipmates.

They dropped from FTL to change course in the Ivrin system, and watched in horror as the twin planets – known always as the Pools, two beautiful and unspoilt garden worlds – came into view, now burnt and desecrated. A ping on the long range scanners distracted Voronwë from the awful sight, indicating that another ship was crossing the system; but before he could get a lock on it, it disappeared into FTL.

They dropped from lightspeed again into the orbit of the huge gas giant Teiglin, and Voronwë sent a hail to the orbital fuel production stations. “Now let’s hope your information is up to date,” he muttered, as they both intently watched the screens.

It was. The prospectors, men and women with dark eyes who originally came from Brethil, the pretty world that could just been seen near the system’s sun, were wary but welcoming.

They didn’t stay long. With their ship refuelled and flying again, Voronwë input the complicated course that would take them to Gondolin’s outer defence stations. “They won’t like us just turning up like this,” he told Tuor, who was going through one of the crates of supplies behind him.

“They don’t have to like it,” Tuor retorted. “They just have to listen.”

Voronwë smiled to himself.

He didn’t say anything to Tuor about how stupidly ready to take on the world words like that made him, when Tuor said them. He didn’t say anything to Tuor about how much he would miss their little ship, their confined space, just the two of them together.

He didn’t say that he didn’t want to share the Man with the outside world at all.

/

Idril came to him afterwards; her ID code unlocked the door to his new apartment without even questing his authorization. “That a perk of royalty?” he asked, attempting not to sound sour.

She ignored him. “I’m glad you made it back, Voronwë,” she said quietly. “I can’t believe you remembered the coordinates, the flight path…”

Suddenly embarrassed for no good reason, Voronwë turned away to the window, gazing out at the haze of stars. “The ship had the coordinates. Most of them.”

He can almost hear Idril’s raised eyebrow. “It wasn’t a ship from Gondolin,” she said, shooting down his lie as easily as if she’d taken a laser cannon to it.

“Maybe I _should_ have fluffed the jumps,” he said quietly. “We’re not supposed to bring anyone in from the outside-”

“You did the right thing.” Idril stepped forward and unexpectedly took his hand. “Now, I want you to come with me.”

He tilted his head. “Where?”

She smiled, bright as the star at the centre of their system. “We have to show Tuor around the station, of course.” Then she gave him a slow, sly wink. “I think the three of us will be spending a lot of time together.”

Voronwë hesitated a moment; a bright, crystalline moment – the beginning of something new.

Then he squeezed her hand. “Lead on, princess.”

“That’s flight captain to you,” she said, pulling him out of the door. “I got promoted.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Woodkid's _Conquest of Spaces_.


End file.
